In the semiconductor industry, devices are fabricated by a number of manufacturing processes producing structures of an ever-decreasing size. Some manufacturing processes such as plasma etch and plasma clean processes expose a substrate to a high-speed stream of plasma to etch or clean the substrate. The plasma may be highly corrosive, and may corrode processing chambers and other surfaces that are exposed to the plasma. This corrosion may generate particles, which frequently contaminate the substrate that is being processed, contributing to device defects. Additionally, the corrosion may cause metal atoms from chamber components to contaminate processed substrates (e.g., processed wafers).
As device geometries shrink, susceptibility to defects and metal contamination increases, and particle contaminant specifications and metal contaminant specifications become more stringent. Accordingly, as device geometries shrink, allowable levels of particle defects and metal contamination may be reduced. To minimize particle defects and metal contamination introduced by plasma etch and/or plasma clean processes, chamber materials have been developed that are resistant to plasmas. Examples of such plasma resistant materials include ceramics composed to Al2O3, MN, SiC and Y2O3. However, the plasma resistance properties of these ceramic materials may be insufficient for some applications. For example, plasma resistant ceramic lids and/or nozzles that are manufactured using traditional ceramic manufacturing processes may produce unacceptable levels of particle defects when used in plasma etch processes of semiconductor devices with critical dimensions of 90 nm or lower.